If tomorrow never comes [Complete]

Chapter 15

A young 13 year old Kong didn't really have any concept of what it meant to be in love. Or lust. Or even simply to be attracted to someone. Whether it mattered if that someone was a girl or a boy. If liking someone, falling in love, wanting to be in a relation was something that Kong might want to aspire someday. None of those emotions featured in Kong's daily life as he strived with all his might simply to survive. To avoid trouble, and more importantly his father every chance he got.

And yet even he knew Arthit was someone special to him. He was his best friend after all. Or atleast that is what Kong assumed best friends were supposed to be even though he tried his best to avoid nearly all interactions with Arthit or his family. He would rarely even step foot into the main house unless explicitly invited. But it didn't matter. Arthit would come to see him every once in a while. And nearly always bring treats or toys or something special to share with Kong.

Over the years Arthit slowly morphed into someone more than the owner's buoyant son. More than a supposed best friend. More than one of the only people who put a smile on Kong's face. But what that someone was, Kong didn't know yet. Neither did he have the knowledge, nor the vocabulary to define the emotion.

The simple happiness of running into Arthit randomly had somehow quietly turned into the unnatural flip in the bottom of his stomach. The innocent games they sometimes played had made the rare laughter he experienced into a lurch in his chest. It might have made him incalculably ecstatic to have those brief run ins but they also left him confused.

And after several months of those bewildering emotions plaguing the young mind he finally found an emotion that he could name. A feeling that he could peg. And he absolutely abhorred it.

He had been working nearly all day in the greenhouse. Tired with his long day of exhaustion. Content at the result of his hard work. And beyond happy with the two week long break he had gotten from his father who was out of town on a trip. He was even treated to dinner at the main house nearly all of last week. Which always had the added benefit of getting to meet Arthit, if he was around that is. All in all today was proving to be a pretty day, a pretty good week infact, when Kong finally exited the large glass house, turned the corner to find two people pressed right up against the wall of the building, shielded from view, their arms wrapped around each other like they clutching at their life support while drifting off in the open sea.

This was probably the first time Kong had experienced jealous. Green and ugly. Rage and anger fusing out of every pore in his body. Watching his friend, his P'Arthit, passionately embracing another person, wantonly kissing the girl from his class, right here behind his house, was enough to identify the strongest emotions Kong had felt until this very day.

All practicality, ever rational thought being tossed out the window as Kong stared at them from his vantage point. Hating every second of it, and yet unable to walk away. Inflicting the torture of the view upon himself. Consuming the pain of realizing his feelings. Knowing full well he wasn't going to be the one on the receiving end of that kiss. Probably going to be at the receiving end of nothing. Ever.

Arthit was going to probably move away at some point and surely move on. His brief memories of Kong drifting away in oblivion sooner or later. But it seemed Kong would be stuck. Just like he was in this moment. Rooted to the spot where he first realized the meaning of love. Which was immediately followed by the bitter reality of heartbreak. The bittersweet ache of first love. Doomed to fail before its budding existence.

And although Kong had no illusions about his life. Or future. Or his bleak chance of a continued relation with Arthit, it still stung. Enough that for the first time in his entire life he did something so uncharacteristic of him that even years later he will feel the effects.

That night the young boy, barely a teenager at the time, fueled by the monster of jealousy and heartbreak, broke into Arthit's and stole what would go on to be Kong's most prized possession. Years later one can still find it in Kong's wallet. Battered and time worn by now, at the time I was a vibrant, happy, wallet sized picture of Arthit. Laughing cheerfully at the camera, showing off his dimpled smile, his long, black lashes barely concealing the mischievous glint in his eyes.

It was just a photo. Nothing but a simple picture of his friend. People keep pictures of their friends all the time, right? Atleast that is how Kong justified his actions. Arthit couldn't be his to kiss. Arthit wouldn't be his for anything. But this one thing. This one picture of Arthit, Kong could claim. This Arthit captured in this one picture would belong to no one but Kong.

He looked at it every chance he got. Touched it secretly, fingering the smooth surface of the picture as he kept it permanently in his pocket, especially when he felt particularly scared or lonely. He spoke to this Arthit for hours together. Telling him stories he had never voiced before. He even shared his first kiss with this 2 dimensional, tiny piece of paper.

And as time went by, as he began growing up, realizing what all those emotions really meant. Finally learning names to his multitudes of feelings associated to the owner's son, he kept himself content with the Arthit trapped within his pocket. There would be no hope that could be crushed, no heartbreak to be experienced, no jealousy, no disappointment, no expectations with this Arthit. Just him and the picture of the boy he had finally realized he was in love with. Perhaps he should have spent more time trying to figure out what the implications were of being in love with a man while being a boy himself. What that would mean for him, for society. But for Kong none of that had mattered. Why would it. He never had any intentions of doing anything about it. And yet he didn't have the capability of moving on. He was perfectly content with being alone, accompanied by that one picture forever.

That was until almost a year to the day he had first stolen the photo, it fell into the hands of the one man least likely to understand his feelings. That was probably the first time Kong's father realized his son was gay.

That was also the first time, while Kong was getting his ribs smashed to pieces did he find out that the man he knew as his dad wasn't his own father. And that he would get no respite from this hellhole till the day his mother remained alive.